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The Cassida, who rejoices in lettuce, brings up his family in other districts where the lettuce abounds. Wanting the tamarisk, we miss our little Curculio, who thrives upon its leaves; and the Bruchus pisi, for want of peas, is frequently caught in the bean-tops.
A pretty invention, this little closed porthole, this barricade against the invader, this trap-door raised by a push when the time has come for the hermit to enter the world. Shall we credit it to the Bruchus? Did the ingenious insect conceive the undertaking? Did it think out a plan and work out a scheme of its own devising? This would be no small triumph for the brain of a weevil.
On the bean and the vetch the Bruchus founded colonies in which the infant mortality was low. There was room for all. On the pea-vine, delicious though its fruits may be, the greater part of its offspring die of starvation. The rations are few, and the hungry mouths are multitudinous. We will linger over this problem no longer.
This ineptitude is a thing I cannot understand: it clashes too completely with the habitual foresight of the maternal instinct. I am inclined to believe that the pea is not the original food plant of the Bruchus. The original plant must rather have been the bean, one seed of which is capable of supporting half a dozen or more larvæ.
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